Alderson beats Aleman by wide margin for U-17 Player of the Year By Steven Sandor Posted on December 12, 2011 Comments Off on Alderson beats Aleman by wide margin for U-17 Player of the Year 0 598 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Bryce Alderson For the second year in a row, midfielder Bryce Alderson has been named Canada’s U-17 male player of the year. It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for Alderson; in mid-November, he was promoted from the Whitecaps’ Residency program to the senior MLS side, and was rewarded with a Generation Adidas deal that make his exempt from the salary cap. What’s interesting about the player of the year vote was by how much Alderson won over the rest of the field. After a couple of head-turning moments at the CONCACAF U-17 Championships, Keven Aleman had made himself the poster boy of the team. After he didn’t sign an agreement to pledge his future to TFC, he was set free by the club’s Academy, and has now hooked on with Real Valladolid (where the club’s roster lists him only as “Keven”). But Alderson, who helped Canada qualify for the U-17 World Cup by being a steadying influence in the midfield of the team that finished second in the CONCACAF Championships, was by far the choice of national-team coaches and Canadian coaches with their “A” or “B” licences. How wide was the vote? Alderson got 39.6 per cent of the vote, while Aleman came in at just 22.3 per cent. Meanwhile, Caledon, Ont. native and U-17 women’s captain Ashley Lawrence was named the women’s U-17 player of the year. Lawrence will lead Canada into qualifying for the 2012 U-17 Women’s World Cup, which will be hosted by Azerbaijan. Lawrence led the fabled Erin Mills program to an Ontario championship in the Nutrilite All Stars Girls competition.
